1. Mobile Subscribers Crazy for Spam
It was over 11 pm when Mrs. Duyen, HCM City, received a text message and was angry because it
was a spam. The sender was unknown and the message was a push-type message, which was full
of pornographic contents, attached with a strange link.
“I am so tired! Sometimes I received a text message at 11p.m. I thought it might be an urgent text but
it turned out to be a junk message. It was so annoying. I don’t know when this stuff ends,” Duyen
complains.
Ms. Mai, also in HCM City, says sometimes she received ten of junk messages with sexual content a
day.
“Text messages with sexual content are very dangerous. They are sent not only to adults but also to
children,” Ms. Huong, a communication officer in District 10, says.
Junk messages with sexual contents are also sent from normal numbers. According to customers,
this phenomenon has been rampant since the lunar New Year, despite the issuance of Decree 77 on
spam. The victims are clients of any mobile service providers.
Ms. Lan, Hanoi, who uses two simcards of MobiFone, says that previously, only one number was
attacked by spam, but now both of them receive junk messages. “My phones ring all the time,
annoying others in my office. But my colleagues have sympathy with me because they are also
victims of messaging spam.”
Ms. Hong, Hanoi, says after a long time deleting junk messages one by one, now she saves time by
keeping them in the inbox for a time then erasing them all at once.
Many annoyed customers have complained to their service providers but nothing changes.
An official of MobiFone says that in the last three days, MobiFone received a lot of complaints from
customers. He just promises to send feedback in three to seven days after receiving the complaints.
“Blocking call spam has been done but blocking text message spam is still a problem,” he admits.
A MobiFone’s representative says that the company has checked its system and implemented some
more measures to protect clients from spam. Specifically, it has completely blocked junk messages
sent from overseas servers while filtered and blocked texts from the local subscribers who send a lot
1

2. of messages at the same time. The firm has also examined messages of content service providers
(CPs).
“On March 12, MobiFone suspended 18 phone numbers of violated CPs,” the official says. He adds
that technology changes very quickly so it is difficult for mobile service providers to control
messaging spam.
VinaPhone states that it has completely handled the CPs that spread junk messages. “However, not
only VinaPhone but also other mobile service providers do not have measures to thoroughly handle
those who spread junk messages,” a VinaPhone’s official says.
The phone numbers that are used to spread junk messages are always registered with fake
information or they are no longer used after that, he explains. In addition, there are a lot of messages
sent from the Internet and foreign servers.
The Ministry of Information and Communications have recently fined four CPs totaling VND1.7 billion
($70,000) for spamming. It is said that the fine is quite heavy but it is still modest compared to the
profits that CPs earn from sending junk messages.
(Vietnamnet).
2